> They do not do that generally. They are concerned solely with code > licensed under the GPL.
That's very true, I should have clarified - you have to assign your copyright to the FSF before they are in a position to defend it. Not everyone does this, I imagine as it prevents them from later changing the licence if they choose to do so. > If you want to get GPLed code and make a closed source fork, you > *can*, but you must negotiate an agreement with the copyright holder > of the code permitting you to do so. This is often quite difficult too, because if your project has a number of different contributors you need to get permission from all of them, unless they specifically agree to assign copyright to someone else when they contribute. > The Plucker folks had problems with a vendor who grabbed the code and > made a closed source fork without getting a license. *Bringing* suit > was beyond the means of the Plucker devs, and it wasn't a big or > important enough product that the FSF would take a hand. The Plucker > devs bit their tongues and put up with it. Open source licenses are > gentlemen's agreements that assume all concerned *are* gentlefolk and > will comply. Sometimes that's not the case. This is the unfortunate downside. Enforcing the licence is a lot of work, which is why you really need an organisation like the FSF who has the resources to do it on your behalf. But it costs them money, and if they can't recover that through legal action (e.g. because the company in violation is too small) it will be a net loss for them. But they are also happy to provide assistance if you have the desire to pursue the process yourself. > The bigger problem with the GPL is that it's *viral.* The GPL states > that code *linked against* GPLed code *becomes* GPLed, even if that is > not the license *it* was issued under. That bit is a breaker for > *many* people, and the source of license incompatibilities I > complained about elsewhere. Google, for example, creates and uses > enormous amounts of open source code. Nothing with the GPL may be > incorporated. (I follow an Android development project that must > reinvent the wheel and recreate stuff available under the GPL. That > situation *existing* is a source of profound irony.) A lot of people complain about the viral nature of the GPL but that's its greatest asset. It stops people from making use of open source code in such a way that you can't get access to it yourself. The viral nature is specifically designed for cases where someone designs a product, uses some open source code to get started, and then builds on it. Without the GPL only the original code would be available, and then nobody would be able to modify your product because they don't have access to all the pieces. The intention behind the GPL being viral is to ensure all those pieces are available such that a user of your product is able to modify the code if they choose to, without being hindered by the lack of code availability of some parts of the system. You already see this in router firmware, as the nature of the licence means that manufacturers have to release the Linux source code, but they don't need to release the source code of all their custom drivers. So you frequently end up with the case where sure, you can install your own firmware on the router, but you lose WiFi and DSL functionality because those drivers are closed source. Which makes installing your own firmware a bit pointless if you lose most of the functionality of the product. This is why version 3 of the GPL was created, to try to stop this from happening, but alas the Linux kernel is still on version 2 so is not protected and we're in this situation where although the code is open and available under the GPL, it still can't be used. I've never really understood why people complain about the GPL being viral - perhaps you can enlighten me with another viewpoint. I only ever see it from the point of view where someone is very happy to make use of code another has provided for free, but they don't want to share their own code in return, which seems a bit selfish and unfair to me. If you want to make use of open source code you should be willing to share your own code in return, and if you want to keep it secret so nobody else can change it that's fine, but then you should have to rewrite stuff from scratch because that's what it would be like if everyone shared your opinion and kept their code secret just like you want to do. This seems to be why projects like Android use Apache rather than GPL, but then code that is Apache licensed doesn't seem incompatible with the GPL, so I wonder whether it would be possible to just relicence the Android code as GPL. The code before that point would be Apache-licenced, and the code after that point would be GPL licenced, and could then make use of GPL software, along with the additional requirements for sharing. But I'm not a lawyer so perhaps this is not possible. Cheers, Adam. _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
